The invention pertains to environmental protecting evacuation and charging systems for refrigeration system refrigerants.
Refrigeration systems, such as commonly employed in refrigerators and air conditioning systems, operate most efficiently when the refrigerant meets predetermined standards of purity and is relatively free of foreign matter such as oil, air and water. Over extended periods of use refrigerant becomes contaminated due to leakage in the refrigeration system, or by the compressor, and it is a standard maintenance procedure to periodically remove and recharge the refrigerant within a refrigeration system. In the past, when servicing a refrigeration system wherein refrigerant must be removed it has been common practice to permit the refrigerant to escape to the atmosphere.
As it has been determined that fluorocarbons, such as the type commonly used as a refrigerant in refrigeration systems, is environmentally harmful to the atmosphere it is highly desirable to prevent uncontrolled release of refrigerants, and further, as contaminated refrigerant can be reprocessed for reuse the retrieval and reprocessing of refrigerant is economically advantageous.
While it is known to recover and reprocess refrigerant from refrigeration systems, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,699,781 wherein the refrigerant may be filtered, dehumidified and restored to its original specification, such systems as known, and disclosed in the aforementioned patent, are for use in large refrigerant reprocessing plants, and are not suitable for use by the refrigeration system serviceman servicing small air conditioning systems such as used in vehicles or window units, or refrigerator systems of the domestic type.
To the inventor's knowledge, a refrigerant retrieval and disposal system for refrigeration systems is not available which is of such size as to be portable and readily utilized in the servicing of small refrigeration systems.